Rather than seeing how many creatures a player can kill or how much gold they can accumulate, Flack is more interested in getting inside the player's head.

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Ramires restored Chelsea's lead shortly before half-time as he finished off a sweeping move and the same player had the chance to kill off Spurs' Champions League hopes in the second half only to slip at the crucial moment after being teed up by Juan Mata.

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Hockey player: What doesn't kill you...

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As for the top 5, I honestly could not see XCom being the great game it was, considering how unbalanced the gameplay is in single-player, especially when certain units like Sectopods require blind luck to kill.

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Part of my job involves reporting the Friday sittings of the Commons, when private members bills are debated - and Mr Nuttall has emerged as an enthusiastic player of the tactical games played by a group of Conservative back-benchers to kill off many of those bills (they see it as an exercise in legislative hygiene, stopping what they see as unnecessary and burdensome bills).

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These near misses could have crushed a lesser player, but the dour Lendl preaches a Nietzschean approach to tennis: that which does not kill you makes you strong.

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The obvious difference is that only real plagues kill real people, though the permanent loss of a character can be a traumatic experience for an enthusiastic player, and one he will try hard to avoid.

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